Sunday, July 17, 2011

I'm not sure if this'll go anywhere, but I've created a new flower/flower shop/flower delivery-centric blog, whose title is a play on the name of this blog. It's called A Peony for Lenny. A "Peony", get it? It sounds like "Penny", but it's different. It's actually fitting, because a Peony is a type of flower. See:

Anyway, I've got a few ideas for the new site, but whether or not I'll actually get off my lazy ass to implement them, that's a whole other question all together. Once again it's: A Peony for Lenny.

I spent a little over $1,100 on car repairs yesterday, and $500 on tires two days before that.

Everything that follows is completely true and authentic. The quotes, should I use any, are to the best of my recollection, if not exact, but are by no means embellished. Enjoy.

**********

It was a slow day in the flower shop today. I was there by myself. Around 3:30pm a man came in. He was visibly distraught. He told me he was a neighbor, that he lived just down the street, and that there was no reason for me to be afraid.

It was an odd thing to say, it was the middle of the day in Sherman Oaks. Afraid of what? I suspect given his attire (ratty, dingy clothes, he could have easily passed for a vagrant), his dentition (he was missing the majority of his lower front teeth) and the certainty that I wasn’t the first person he’d approached, he’d more than likely evoked that emotion in those that came before me. To me however, any person walking through the front door of the shop is a potential customer.

He then told me that he has AIDS, at which point he lifted up his shirt sleeve to show me his arm, which, as best as I can describe, was merely a skin wrapped humerus. No muscle, no fat. Just complete and utter atrophy. While it was quite sickly looking, I’m no doctor, so whether or not it was an actual result/condition/symptom of AIDS, or if it was due to some accident he had had, I couldn’t tell you. He reassured me that I didn’t have to worry, that I wouldn’t get AIDS from him.

He explained, in a manner that seemed as though he was teetering on the verge of tears, that no one else was home with him, not his mom, or his little sister, and he urgently needed to get to the Rite-Aid where he was going to have a prescription filled.

He continued, in ever growing detail, to let me know that he had rectal bleeding. He then turned around and lifted his shirt off the back of his shorts to show me the blood stain, that I (thankfully) didn’t actually see. He said that he had Medi-Cal and had something setup at Rite-Aid through AIDS Project Los Angeles to get an anal suppository to stop the bleeding, he gave me the pharmaceutical name, which was lost on me the moment he said it, but he still needed to come up with the co-pay. He even pulled out a pre-cut quarter page form of some sort (NOT a prescription slip, but similar in size) with his name (which I’m withholding…for the time being anyway), (what he claimed was) his Medi-Cal number, plus some various other information, to prove to me the legitimacy of his claims.

Apparently his father was driving up the 5 freeway to get to him, but he was still a ways out. According to my “neighbor”, his father told him to go into an office and see if someone would give him the money, and that as soon as dad got into the valley, he would gladly pay that person back.

He was pleading with me. Please, please, could I please just help him. I was gonna get the money back. He was gonna pay me back. I had nothing to worry about, he told me.

My “neighbor” needed $36 and some change.

**********

For the most part, I’m not a gullible person.

Nor am I a bleeding heart.

In fact, I generally dislike all but a select few.

But there I went, reaching for my wallet. I pulled out two twenties and handed them over to him.

He thanked me, grabbed a business card so he would know where to come back, shook my hand, and told me not to worry, that I would get my money back.

I was skeptical. Didn’t think I would see that money ever again. This is generally how much I think of my fellow man, not just this particular fellow. But I figured $40 was a small price to pay for a clear conscience, on the off chance that his story was legit.

**********

Cut to a short 15 minutes later, when my “neighbor” comes back in saying that he just spoke to his mom and that she’s real close by, almost there. Like a schmuck, I’m thinking, “wow, this guy was telling the truth, his mom is almost here, so he came back to return my money, and he’ll just have her pay for his medication.”

Notice the part where I said “like a schmuck.” I had gotten too far ahead of myself.

See, yes, he had spoken to his mother, but he was not there to reward my trusting and selfless gesture. Nope. Apparently, he had spoken to his mother who told him that they were giving him some different medication, cue a new pharmaceutical name that was again lost on me, and that he no longer needed $36 dollars, but that he would actually now be needing $66 dollars.

More pleading and promises as I explained to him that I didn’t think I had enough left to cover that. There was no fucking way I was gonna pull money out of the till. My own personal cash is one thing, but I wasn’t about to hurt my moms (already struggling) business to help out a guy who at this point I was near positive was scamming me. But still…

…I pulled out the wallet a second time. There were four bills inside. A twenty and three singles. That’s all I had left. That was every last dollar I had on me. I took it out and counted it. Twenty-three dollars. I showed him my now empty wallet as he kept pleading. “So I’ll only need three more dollars. That’s okay,” he said to me. I would get my money back he told me again. And I handed it over. It was now around 3:45pm.

Me and my empty wallet waited patiently for my “neighbor’s” mother, or father, or second cousin, or great uncle twice removed, to come replenish my coffers, perking up every time someone would walk by outside. Holding out hope that they were gonna be coming in the shop, thinking to myself, “oh, do you have my money? No. How about you?” I’m still unsure if any of these thoughts were involuntarily vocalized.

And then it happened, around 6:00pm, a well dressed black man (the “neighbor” was also black) with money in his hand walked into the flower shop. Bully for me! I had made the right decision by casting aside my overwhelming doubts and performing this good deed, and here it was, my reward, in the form of my money being returned to me!

“Hi. Can I get some quarters for the parking meter.” – Well Dressed Black Man

Figures. No good deed goes unpunished I guess.

Maybe my “neighbor’s” a Nigerian Prince.

An hour later I closed the shop for the day…

…63 Dollars lighter.

But yeah, I’m still the asshole cause I was three bucks short.

- Lenny

Oh, and if anyone actually reads this and chooses to leave a comment, no racist shit about the guy being black, because I’ve been scammed and robbed by white dudes as well.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

I was never much of a reader when I was younger. It was always such a pain for me in school. Then one day, a few, seven years ago, I was flying to Boston for a wedding and bought a book at an airport newsstand to read on the plane. Since then I’ve kept on reading pretty regularly.

I tended towards crime fiction and true crime books, but as I’ve become more of a reader, I begun to expand my horizons. I started to attack universally regarded classics. Fahrenheit 451 was the first of these. And I tell you, I couldn’t have pick a better first classic. I loved that book. I figured I was onto something here, so I went for another one – To Kill A Mockingbird. Wow! I was two for two. So far so good…but not for long.

I then decided to take The Catcher in the Rye for a spin. First a disclaimer – I’m only about 5 or 6 chapters in as of this writing.

Now I get that I’m 31 reading a book that was written from a 16 year-olds point of view. I also fully understand that it was published in 1951. But all that notwithstanding, so far all I’ve taken away from this is that Holden Caulfield is a whiny little bitch.

Don’t fret dear readers, I fully intend on finishing the book, but I just really wish I had some historical perspective to wrap my head around how this became a classic. I mean, are a few fucken profanities enough to make something popular? I guess in 1951 they were.

I’ll let you know if Holden’s nads drop as I continue reading on. Don’t be surprised if they don’t. With a name like “Holden” we can’t really expect too much.

I had originally started writing this in October, but never finished it. Everything new I’ve added will be BOLD.

Damn. It’s been over a month since my last post.

Bad Lenny!

I know. I’m useless.

Why have I been m.i.a.?

A few different reasons, none of them from the happyjoy column - like I met a chick that’s sexually insatiable and I just haven’t had the energy to write. Yeah, not for any reason remotely resembling that. My reason’s:

The majority of my content, just by the nature of them, were my Jeopardy Clue of the Day posts. As much fun as I had doing those, many days, they would be the only content that I would post. And to be honest, that’s part of what intrigues me about having some daily on-going feature, so that even if I had nothing else to share/rant/observe, I would still have a fresh new post for people to read. But even in that feature’s beginnings, I feared this site becoming “that Jeopardy blog”. As such, I’ve decided to retire the COTD.

Also, around the time of my last post, Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds was released. In the buzz and buildup for the movie, I was turned onto an artist by the name of Tyler Stout. His connection to IB? He was commissioned to create a limited edition Art Print Poster for the film. That poster (along with it’s variants) is truly a thing of beauty (pictures below – yeah, they were gonna be below, but I don’t feel like finding them on my hard drive. Just Google ‘em). When I look at true art/creativity, I become defeated, ashamed of the sophomoric ramblings contained in these pages.

Anyway, I’m sure there was a lot more to this posting, but come on, that was like 8 months ago. You expect me to remember? At any rate, I’m back. I can’t say if I'll be posting with any kind of regularity, but I will be posting.